The Purling Lesson
by meilin-m
Summary: Martha Jones comes back for her second lesson from Jack Harkness. Hotness, though bittersweet hotness, ensuesthough not much purling. Sequel to The Knitting Lesson, set after Last of the Time Lords. Crossover with Torchwood.


The Purling Lesson Owen Harper came slouching up the autopsy room stairs late one night, throwing himself into his workstation chair and propping his feet up on the desk. "Oh Christ, still knitting, Doctor Jones?" "Don't sneer, Doctor Harper. For all you know, it's your Christmas prezzie," Martha Jones answered tartly as she came to the end of a row. Owen snorted. "I should bloody well hope not. 'Prezzie,'" he mimicked under his breath. Martha eyed the long strip of red wool in plain garter stitch. "It's not THAT bad. A bit plain. I haven't had my next lesson. Jack's teaching me." Owen gave her a sharp look. "So I remember." She knocked his feet off the desk to reach her tote bag on the other side of him.  
"Owen," she said, hands on hips, "you could do with a stress reliever. Improve your mood"  
"Only one stress reliever for me." You too apparently, his expression read. "Well, two. Drinking. Which often leads to the first. Dual purpose stress relief"  
Martha shrugged as she crossed back to her desk and tucked her work back into its bag. "Knitting seems to be helping me with mine"  
Owen rolled his eyes, put his feet back up on the desk and stuck a well-chewed pen in his mouth.  
"You should let Jack teach you, he's a very good teacher," she persisted.  
"I don't need those kinds of lessons"  
"He'd show you his balaclava," she teased.  
"Already seen it." He took the pen out of his mouth and pulled what Martha had thought was a black turtleneck over his head--"Voila. Balaclava. He's been knitting them by the dozen since he got back from London." He pushed it down around his neck, gave his hair a quick flick of his fingers and stuck the pen back in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. "Actually kinda useful in our trade from time to time. An' it's cold down here"  
"Ianto knits, don't you, Yan?" said Martha as the young Welshman appeared, emptying bins.  
"I'm sure he does," said Owen sarcastically, putting his feet on the ground and preparing to go home.  
"It's a good way to meet girls," said Ianto quietly, heading for the kitchen area with a handful of teacups and the garbage bag.  
"If your idea of 'girl' is 'Golden Girl,' then yeah. Don't care for 'girls' old enough to be my gran"  
"Haven't you gone for coffee lately? Seen all the young girls knitting in the shops?" said Martha. "Quite the thing now"  
Halfway to the gate, Owen muttered, "I have actually noticed that. Thought it was a fad. hm"  
Ianto re-appeared from the kitchen. "There's a wool shop in the Heathwood Road, and another in Penarth, classes to be had in either. Lots of girls, hardly any men"  
Owen considered for a moment as he shrugged into his jacket and strode out the gate. "No," he answered over his shoulder in a decided tone, "that way lies madness. I'm off." The hatch rolled shut behind him. Ianto watched him go, then picked up his own coat.  
"So what've you knit, then, Ianto?" asked Martha as she searched her workstation for some test results Jack had asked for. Ianto put his arms in the sleeves of his coat and then tugged up his pant legs, revealing a pair of argyle socks so tidy and fine they almost looked machine made. Martha goggled. Ianto shrugged slightly, shaking his pants back into place. "I like colorwork." He turned to go.  
"Ianto? Jack taught you, too, didn't he?" asked Martha. Ianto colored a bit and nodded. "Good night, Doctor Jones"  
Martha stretched in her chair and yawned. The suddenly empty hub magnified the sound. "Still here? My results, I hope?" came a voice from above. Martha jumped a little.  
"Yeah, I was just about to print them out. I wanted to go over them with you before I left"  
"Don't print, just send them to me. Come on up here, we haven't seen each other in days it feels like. Bring your knitting," he grinned, "I'll get out the good stuff"  
They sat in Jack's office, drinking Irish whiskey neat from Ianto's teacups and talking over the test results on his workstation. Martha took up the garter stitch scarf, or whatever it was meant to be, and began to knit between sips, focusing almost entirely on her needles. Jack took advantage of her distraction, studying her face speculatively and turning his teacup round and round in his palm. As the whiskey level went down in the cups, the conversation switched to other cases, then to office gossip, and then to Martha's family.  
"They're doing better," said Martha, gesturing for a refill with her teacup. "Mum says Leo's gradually coming to believe that we're not all escaped from Bedlam. Dad has scars he didn't have before, visible ones--that's what did it. Annalise did NOT take the breakup well." She giggled slightly, shaking her head. "Tish says she took everything that wasn't nailed to the floor. Made cleaning out Dad's flat fairly easy, though! Oh damn," she said, frowning, "I dropped a stitch. Oi! Stop! It's running all the way down"  
"Don't panic, it's fixable!" laughed Jack. "Come on downstairs. It's more comfortable down there anyway." He slid down the ladder to his room, Martha following more cautiously, trailing wool. When she reached the bottom, he was already brandishing a crochet hook. "Hand it over. Turn on the fire, would you?" Martha flicked the knob for the little gas fire in the wall and settled onto her usual spot on Jack's footstool. "How," she thought, "have I acquired a usual spot in Jack's bedroom? Wonder if this is where Ianto sits for lessons. Probably not," she laughed to herself. "What's so funny?" said Jack, handing back her repaired knitting. "Nothing, nothing," she smiled. "Just thinking about lessons"  
"Oh?" He leaned forward slightly in his chair. "Has the time come for that lesson, then?" he asked softly. "I--" Martha was taken aback. The room was suddenly a bit too warm, despite the hub's perpetual damp. She looked up at Jack. A small smile played around his lips, and his blue eyes were full of affection--and something else, holding her there. "I'm not entirely sure"  
"No? Then why are you in my bedroom, Martha Jones?" She couldn't look away from him, though his gaze seemed to keep her from breathing. "To fix my knitting?" she finally squeaked. He laughed.  
"I think it's time you learned to purl," he said in a low voice, patting his knee. "C'mere." Martha tried to keep herself collected as she settled onto Jack's lap. Once again his arms came around her, taking her hands in his as he'd done when he'd taught her to knit the first time. "Purling is just backwards knitting," he said. "Put your needle into the stitch back to front, not front to back...okay, bring the wool around like this...and pull the new stitch up. That's it. And again...good! You've got it." He dropped her hands, placing his own lightly around her waist. "Keep going on your own now. I'll watch." She could feel his voice vibrating through her back, a buzz that made her shiver a bit. "You're cold," he said, pulling her closer. She sighed. "Jack," she murmured. She felt him tense slightly behind her. "About getting over the Doctor. It'll never be completely done for us, but time is passing, and it's getting easier. But you understand that, you know what I'm feeling, you feel it too. And you'd understand--this is just the once, right? That we can't--that I can't--" She felt him relax again. "I mean--it's just the once. All right?" Jack laid the softest kiss against the nape of her neck, a touch so soft she wasn't even sure of it for a moment. "I will take--" he kissed her neck again-- "whatever--" another kiss-- "you're willing to give me, sweetheart. And give you however much you want in return"  
Martha let out the small breath she'd been holding. "I don't want anyone to be my 'rebound,' and I don't want to hurt Ianto, either"  
"Ianto," he said firmly, "knows his place in my affections." He went back to the delicate, tingling kisses on her neck.  
"Did you teach him to knit like this?" "Oh, not quite," he chuckled. She felt his voice deep inside her, and it made her shiver again. "More like this." He took the forgotten needles from her hands and laid them aside, pulling her fully onto his lap, legs across the arm of the chair. She put her arms around his neck. "I don't want Ianto's lesson. I'm not looking for seconds. Anyone's seconds," she said, as an image of the Doctor appeared in her mind's eye. Oh, Jack, she thought, we're both in love with him, but were you in love with Rose too?  
"Nothing you get from me is seconds, Martha," he said, tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb. "It belongs to you, and only you, when I give it to you." She looked down into his face. His eyes were dark, his lips parted. She brushed his cheek, stubble rough under her fingertips. "You promise not to scream his name?" she smiled wistfully, searching Jack's face.  
"I promise you," he replied, low and steady, "that the only screaming is going to be coming from you. And it won't be his name"  
Her breath caught. She hesitated, and then dipped her head down to kiss him.  
Soft. A soft kiss, gentle and sweet, a little melancholy, the kiss of two friends who had gone through a great deal together. A second, deeper, kiss, a kiss that acknowledged past loves and present heartaches. And finally, a third kiss that belonged only to them, and did not end for a very long time. When it did, they clung to each other for a moment, breathing a little hard, studying each other's eyes. She felt awake, for the first time since she left the TARDIS, completely awake. Every inch of her was aware, of the smell of the bay rum Jack used, his thatch of hair under her fingers, the circle of warmth from the gas fire, and his desire pressing against her. "Hold on," Jack said, slipping one arm under her knees and the other around her back. He rose from the chair, easily lifting her in his arms and walking the few steps to his bed, where he laid her down. Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifted each of her feet and removed her boots and socks, tracing his fingers up her soles from heel to toe. He took off his own and laid down beside her. They faced each other, and in that moment Martha remembered another bed, in a time centuries past, where she lay just like this, expecting a kiss that never came. But then Jack slipped his hand around her neck and pulled her to him. The kiss was longer, and more urgent. She fumbled with his shirt buttons, her fingers trembling with nerves. "Stop," he said softly, taking one of her hands in his. "Stop. We have plenty of time, and if this is just the once, I'm going to take all of it." He kissed her fingers one by one, tongued the pulse at her wrist, then gently but firmly rolled her onto her back, pinning her hands at her sides briefly. "Keep them there." He stood, slipping his braces off his shoulders. He took off his shirt, hanging it neatly on a hook, where it was soon joined by his trousers. Stripping off his vest and pants, he stretched himself out naked and hard beside her, one hand propping up his head, the other trailing patterns on her still-clothed stomach. He was so beautiful, almost too beautiful, she thought. And even though it was clear he knew it, Martha sensed no smugness in him, only a kind of glee in sharing a gift. She raised a hand to touch him--"Martha, can't you do what you're told, just this once?" he grinned, and she dropped it again with a small laugh. "When's the last time you did this?" he said, almost conversationally, as he unzipped her jeans and pulled them off, nudging her to raise her hips for him. "Uh," said Martha, trying to think. He made it so hard to think, sliding his hands up her legs like that. "I--it'd been a few months before I met--before I started traveling..." She would not say his name, no, she refused to say his name. "And then I was off for a year doing that, and then there was the year no one else remembers...oh..." His hands were sliding all the way up her hips and under her sweater. He gently urged her to sit, and eased the sweater up over her head. Jack clacked his tongue. "That's insane. A woman as beautiful as you? That's criminal." He deftly unhooked her bra, slid the straps down and kissed her shoulder; he flicked the garment away. "It is a crime for someone like you to go without touch for even a day," he said, sliding behind her to kiss across her back to the other shoulder. "A body this beautiful was meant to be shared, often. Preferably with me." She felt his smile against her skin.  
Martha tried to slow her breathing down. Wouldn't do to hyperventilate, at all, Doctor Jones, she thought. My God, he's barely touched me, and he's got me in a state. "Jack, please let me--oh God," she gasped, as he pulled her against his chest, his arms encircling her waist. She could feel his warm skin all along her back, the muscles underneath--and his hard cock, nestling cozily against her ass. "Oh God." "Aren't I good at this?" Jack teased, taking her earlobe between his teeth. His hands cupped her breasts.  
"You know you are, you git!" exclaimed Martha, exploding in shocked laughter. "Yeah, I do," he admitted. "Training." He bit her neck lightly. "Practice." Another bite on the other side. "Raw talent. Enthusiasm." He sucked hard on her shoulder and rolled her nipples between his fingers.  
Martha's laughter dissolved into a cry. She arched against his hands, then pressed her hips back against him, hard. "Ah--I just like to hear you say it," he gasped. Martha's head lolled back against Jack's shoulder, trying to control her breathing and failing. Jack bit all along her exposed neck, growling softly, still playing with her nipples. Martha began to move against his hands, undulating slightly. She kept the rhythm of his hands and mouth with wordless little hums that picked up in intensity as he smoothed one hand down her stomach. The hums turned to an open mouthed "Ah!" and she rose up a little on her knees.  
Jack brushed his hand against her mound, and she moaned. He hooked his thumbs in the sides of her knickers and pulled down and she nearly sobbed, pulling up fully onto her knees. Jack followed, keeping contact with her back, and running his fingers, feather-light, through the curls between her legs. He held her up through the shudder that nearly dropped her, and then slipped his fingers just inside her labia to stroke her. Martha cried out, full-voiced, and writhed in his arms as she came, a short, crashing orgasm that left her panting and dazed against his chest, her knickers still around her knees. "Oh. My. Martha," Jack laughed, laying her back down on the bed and removing her knickers the rest of the way. "If just this little bit is enough to make you come like that, it is WAY past time for you to be properly fucked." He laid down, partly on her, partly on the bed, and kissed her, hard, grinding his erection against her hip. "I am guessing," he said, breaking the kiss but not the contact, "that there are about a dozen more of those crying to get out. Shall we see how many I can let out before we're done"  
"Uh?" said Martha, still muzzy. Jack laughed again. "Are you always this funny in bed"  
"Funny?" she answered, finding her voice at last and arching a brow. "You think I'm funny, yeah?" She reached down between them and found his cock.  
"Did I say funny?" gasped Jack. "I meant incredibly hot and funny." She reached up with her other hand and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him into a fierce kiss. Her tongue brushed over his teeth while she stroked his hardness, making him groan into her mouth. "Not too much," he nearly begged. "You may have a dozen, but I only get a couple at a time at best. Aaaah, Martha--no more." He moved out of her grasp and down her body, holding her breasts in his hands and forcing her legs open with one thigh. She looked down at him as he sucked on one nipple and then the other, gently at first, and then harder, pulling them up from her breasts and biting them. She was so wet she could slide along his thigh, rubbing her clit against him as he worried her breasts with his teeth until she finally came again, clutching his shoulders so hard she left marks. "That's two," said Jack smugly. Martha recovered much more quickly this time. "If you think," she said, "that I'm gonna just lie here and let you--" She pushed him onto his back before he could gauge her intent. "I don't have your kind of training but I did pass anatomy, with flying colors, an' I'm not afraid to use it"  
"Oh, please, don't let me stop you," Jack grinned up at her, tilting his head to one side. She bent down and sucked on the pulse at his neck. His eyes fluttered.  
"Carotid artery," she said, moving down his chest. "Pectoralis Major. Areola." Her tongue circled his nipple and then took it into her mouth, hard. "Knew you probably liked that," she said as he arched into her, then took the second in her mouth. "Rectus Abdominis," as her mouth kissed down his stomach. She took his cock in her hand and he let out a long sigh. "Glans." She took it in her mouth and passed her tongue around it, tasting his pre-cum. His hands went to the back of her head. "Martha..." he warned. She let him go. "Testes," she said, weighing them in her hand and moving up to lie almost full against him. "Prostate..." she whispered, pressing hard behind his balls through to the root of his cock. "Right, that's enough." Jack rolled her over onto her back, placing himself between her thighs. "Usually I love it when you're all medical and brilliant, but that's enough." He braced himself above her, watching her mouth open as he pushed slowly into her. "Oh Martha. Oh, you feel very, very good"  
She didn't answer. She felt him stop halfway, pull nearly all the way out, then push all the way inside her and stay there for a long moment. Tension started building from her curling toes up through her legs, and she pulled her knees up as high as she could, rocking her hips. Martha ran her hands up his arms, scratched his nipples ("Stop," he growled), finally cupped his face before settling her hands back down on his shoulders.  
He set up a steady rhythm, murmuring endearments as he fucked her. Martha felt the tension, a delicious, melting tension, flowing up into her core and out over all of her skin. He changed angles slightly and her eyes, which had drifted closed, opened wide as he slid past just the right spot inside, over and over. "Ah, that's what I'm looking for. Stay with me, Martha. Eyes open. Stay here with me"  
He picked up his pace, and she matched him, watching the pleasure wash over his face with every thrust. "Oh God. Ah. Oohhhhh. Oohhhhhh." At first she'd struggled to keep her eyes open but now she couldn't look away. She could see straight through to his soul, his huge generous heart shining in his eyes. She could see all of his love and all of his pain and he was so hard inside her over and over and she heard a voice crying out "Jack! Jack!" and she realized it was her own and she wrapped her legs around him and the tension broke all over her like a wave rolling her over and over and she screamed and screamed and screamed And when her eyes could focus again, she was still looking into his face, and he was moving faster, hard inside her. His eyes were bright with...tears? Unshed tears. And his smile was dazzling. "Ohh, that's my sweetheart, that's my Martha, that's my beautiful, wonderful girl---aaahhhh--haaaaa!---AAAH!" She felt him spasm deep inside her, his cum flooding her. As he lay in her arms, shuddering and groaning, she felt him twitching, still buried within her. She tightened instinctively around his not-yet-soft cock, and another little orgasm rippled through her. He gasped as the feeling ran through him, and laughed into her neck. "And that makes four"  
"And so we're keeping score?" she said, tears and laughter in equal measure shaking her.  
"If it's just the once, yes," he said, suddenly sobering as he brushed her hair from her face, "I want to remember exactly how this was. And I want you to remember exactly what I did to you, exactly what you did to me. I want to burn your face, with just this expression, into my memory"  
"And what expression is that"  
"Well-fucked." She laughed and punched him weakly in the shoulder. "I mean it. I want to see this look on your face again, even if I'm not the one who put it there. It belongs there." "Well." Martha curled up against his chest, stroking his smooth skin. "I'll give you something else to remember this by. Because I can't give that scarf to my mum now"  
Jack burst out laughing. "I will treasure it always." "You'd best do," she murmured, "you'd best do." 


End file.
